Les Herse des années 60 étaient très beau. Il n’y avait pas beaucoup de commandes, et ils prenaient encore plus de soin avec chacun. Je crois que vous serez content avec le livre sur René Herse. (The Herse bikes of the 1960s were very nice. The shop didn’t have many orders, and they took extra care with every bike they made. I think you will like the book about René Herse.)

No, I didn’t do the French translation. To make sure the book reads as if it was originally written in French, we worked with a professional. Experts Raymond Henry and Dominique Pacoud supervised the project to make sure everything is 100% correct. This assures that the French book meets our high standards.

When my girlfriend noticed the spine she said “why is this book printed upside down?”. I assured her of your attention to detail, insisting that it must be intentional. Why is the spine printed opposite from most books I’ve encountered? I’m sure you must have a good reason.

When we did our first book, The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles, we put the text on the spine the French way, which is opposite to the American way. For consistency, we have kept it that way. That way, when you put our books next to each other, they match.

That always is a sore point with me as I own lots of books in different languages many of which are shelved according to subject (and not language). This means I have to twist my head all the time when reading the spines. I already suffered from that (in an even worse way) at university, where in my field books where from totally mixed origins and the spine print would alternate with almost every book.